Thin Lizzy - 40 Shades of Green

In the process of recovering all my music, basically the first thing I sniffed out after the Swamp Library was restored more or less intact was my (perhaps obsessively large) collection of Thin Lizzy bootlegs. Now that I've decided to basically upload all of my music methodically to mediafire over the coming months, it seems to be time to stretch the borders of the Swamp and encroach upon some new territory. It's no secret that Thin Lizzy is a favorite among many music bloggers, and I count myself among them, but much of their material is available only from snobbish, miserly tape-traders - good old boy networks of aging ponytailed wankers who snootily require a blank CD mailed through the post before they're willing to share their fourth-generation dubs, and then only after tedious hazing rituals and gratuitous obsequiousness. Fortunately, the internet, for all its faults, pokes holes in their greasy Cheeto-colored armor, allowing ephemera like this to flow freely into the hands of true fans, who only want the spread the gospel of the Black Rose.
Enough of that: let's talk about this album. My personal favorite Lizzy studio album is The Black Rose, and these, my friends, are the demo tracks from that album. One can hear prime mover Phil Lynott experimenting with tempos and lyrics, thrilling for the long-time fan, but even more important are the songs - notably "Hate" and "Just the Two of Us" - abandoned (sadly) in favor of some of the weaker cuts that ended up on the album. Also notable is the version of "Ode to a Black Man," one of Phil's best songs, which didn't surface for years until it was eventually recorded for one of his solo albums. To any of you who are unfamiliar with Thin Lizzy, I would perhaps recommend obtaining a copy of The Black Rose through your preferred method and then getting to know this double-CD collection once you've wrapped your mind around it. The rest of you might as well get down to business.